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Hive, Can I ask for prayer for something unusual???


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Ds 12 has always wanted to bottle feed a rejected lamb. DD used to do this for area farmers and we have had a blast for the six weeks that lambs have lived in our basement and run around our yard...(we wean at six weeks and they go back to their respective farms.) We got a phone call last night that the fiber farm, where my horse is boarded, had two newborn lambs that weren't doing well. One was from a set of twins in which the ewe was bonding with one lamb and not the other. The little black one was from a set of triplets born to a relatively young ewe who just didn't seem to have enough milk. We said we would take them.

 

Well, the owner called in the afternoon and said she'd changed her mind. That it appeared the lambs were doing better. Okay...disappointed but, that's how it goes and it is better for them to be raised with mama's milk than on lamb formula. So, this morning was one of my weekly days for helping her with farm chores and with the storm coming, we were shoring up drafty areas, putting extra straw in the sheep end of the barn, hanging heat lamps for chickens and lambs, etc. Wouldn't you know...she made a bad call, one of the lambs had died and the other was very, very weak.

 

I brought the weak one home. She's a lovely black with white spots and a fighter. But, even though she was under tha heat lamp it was obvious she hadn't eaten last night...mama's bag just isn't capable of feeding triplets and you know how it is with nature, once she realized this, she picked one to let die. We've gotten a little colostrum from another ewe into her and she's wrapped in a fleece blanket sitting on Ds's lap being coaxed to live.

 

He wants her to live so badly and I'm having a hard time keeping his optimism in check so if she dies, it won't be quite so awful.

 

Is it too much to ask for prayer for a little boy and his barely alive lamb?

 

Thanks,

Faith

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I'm praying. We bottle feed our baby goats. Sometimes they really improve if you keep holding them and continuously feed them tiny amounts of milk mixed with strong coffee from an eyedropper.

 

We don't use milk replacer. Would vitamin D whole milk from the grocery store be better for these first few days?

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Thanks, I never thought of coffee! We'll give that a try with her next round of colostrum.

 

The lamb formula is a back up plan. I'm looking for a homemade recipe but dh suggested calling the farmer that boards our cow, Mabel, and telling him we need to pick up an extra gallon (normally we only take three gallons per week and he gets all the rest). I'm trying to find out if the nutritional content of cows milk is going to work for a lamb. I don't know about the selenium and copper. Sheep can get copper deficiency but are easily overwhelmed by too much selenium so I want to make sure that the copper level is not too low and the selenium is not too high. If that checks out okay, we'll probably feed her Mabel's milk with the lamb formula around for if we run low on milk or something. She'll be on colostrum from a ewe that just delivered and a single babe that she was taking good care of. We cornered that ewe in her stall and milked about 16 oz. worth. So, I'll definitely use that good mama's first milk before I give the little gal anything else.

 

She just bleated once, made a meconium mess all over the blanket we had her wrapped in, and tried to hold her head up. So, keep praying everyone...ds wants her to live so badly that he's got a notebook out there and he's recording every cc of colostrum he gets in her and her respitation rates. If she makes it, he'll have a great report, pictures, and journal for a veterinary science 4-H project...our county has an animal rescue section in it's vet science program.

 

Faith

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DD suggested 4ccs of B complex subQ, plus a rice sock next to the lamb. Also make sure that the milk/colostrum is body temperature. You may need to keep heating it up.

 

Her sheep-raising friend said that she raises all of hers on cow's milk if goat milk is not available.

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